The various features of classroom talk characterize the communication of most teachers and students, at least when they are in a classroom and “doing school”. (Communication outside of school is a different matter: then teachers as well as students may speak, listen, and behave quite differently!) As you might suppose, the extent and balance among the features varies depending on grade level, curriculum area, and personalities of students or teachers. But failing to use a classroom register at all can easily create communication problems. Suppose, for example, that a teacher never asks informal test questions. In that case the teacher will learn much less than otherwise about her students' knowledge of the current material. Then also suppose that a student does not understand teachers' questions as test questions. That student may easily respond in ways that seem disrespectful (Teacher: “How much is 23 x 42?" Student: “I don't know; how much do you think it is?”) (Bloome, et al., 2005).
The classroom talk register, then, constrains how communication between teachers and students can take place, but it also gives teachers and students a “language” for talking about teaching and learning. Given this double-edged reality, how can teachers use the classroom talk register to good advantage? How, in particular, can teachers communicate in ways that stimulate more and better thinking and discussion? In the next, final section of the chapter, we offer some suggestions for answering these questions. As you will see, the suggestions often reinforce each other. They are more like a network of ideas, not a list of priorities to be considered or followed in sequence.
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